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Research Paper On Mona Lisa

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The Mona Lisa is one of the greatest paintings in the Renaissance Era of the 15th and 16th century and is widely considered the greatest portrait of all time. Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian polymath, worked on this piece during the years 1505-1510 but ultimately left it unfinished. This oil painting is on a relatively small poplar wood panel that only measured 30 by 21 inches. Many are intrigued by the subject’s perplexed face and distinctive smile. There is a somber color throughout with a bleak and desolate background. In all of Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, this s the only one that he does not have any preliminary sketches or mention in his writings. He never signed, dated, or gave a name to this painting. Since 1797, this work of art has …show more content…

Sfumato, Italian for “blended”, gave a smoky connotation to the piece. This accurately explains Da Vinci’s technique of layering translucent colors to create necessity of depth, volume, and form. This smoky feel is vivid in her scarf, around the outside of her eyes, and her hair. This technique occurs in the portrait’s background to give a harmonious sense between the sitter and landscape. This was so exceptional at this time because it gave a sense of realism. Da Vinci used his masterful skill to present this technique in a well-done manner. The landscape in the background covers roughly two-thirds of the painting. The background is meaningful in that there are many flavors of warm colors on the same level as the subject’s chest. This warm place is where men live, as shown with the roads in the bridges. Then there is a transition in the background to a space distant and inhabited, this is on the same level as her eyes. Da Vinci uses an atmospheric perspective where the background gets hazier as the distance increases. He has different numerous rocky landscapes in his other works, but the landscapes on either side of her head are a physical impossibility. The landscape on the right side of her head is distinctly lower than the landscape on her left side. This is as an imaginary landscape and is one of the first paintings to use …show more content…

Da Vinci used more somber and depressing color pallets than other artists like him did. By looking at the painting, one can notice the absence of the subject’s eyebrows. The cleaning of the painting accidently removed the eyebrows, which Da Vinci originally added after the backdrop was finished. Due to these poor cleaning techniques, a greenish hue appeared over the subject’s skin tone. Da Vinci had an extensive understanding of anatomy, performing over thirty dissections of various types of corpses, which helped him create a prodigiously accurate image of the subject’s hands. The dark half circles on either side of the subject, on the border, are the bases of the pillars of an open logia. This shows that there could have been more to the original piece and that there was a possibility that part of the painting was lost during the removal of the original frame. Like many of Leonardo da Vinci’s other paintings, the Mona Lisa deteriorated over time. The varnish over the painting started darkening less than a century later. A crack appears near the top center of the painting down to her

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